A West Town man was trying to avoid jail when he dragged a Chicago police officer with his vehicle during a traffic stop on the South Side earlier this week, Cook County prosecutors said.
The officer was sent hurtling through the air and slammed into a cement wall, fracturing his skull in three places because of Aaron Okelola’s actions, prosecutors told John F. Lyke Jr. Wednesday.
Now, instead of a traffic fine, Okelola could face decades in prison, Lyke noted.
Okelola, 25, was stopped by the officer and his partner after they spotted him driving through a solid red light in the first block of West 95th Street around 7:30 p.m. Monday.
Okelola was unable to produce a driver’s license and had been smoking marijuana in the vehicle, prosecutors said. When the officer reached into the vehicle to grab the keys, Okelola allegedly sped away, dragging the 30-year-old officer with him.
After accelerating through another intersection and crossing three lanes of traffic, Okelola, crashed into a metal support beam for the 95th Street/Dan Ryan CTA Red Line station, prosecutors said.
“The officer is in surgery right now as we speak,” Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy said Wednesday.
Okelola was charged with a count of attempted murder, as well as misdemeanor counts of fleeing and driving on a suspended license.
“This is all captured on video,” Murphy said of recordings taken with the officer’s body-worn camera.
Okelola allegedly admitted to dragging the officer. He was out on bond in a pending drug case at the time of the crime, prosecutors said.
Okelola, a father of two, had not intended to harm the officer and did not give a signed statement, an assistant public defender said, adding that the electrician’s assistant could post $10,000 if released on bond.
“He can keep his $10,000, he won’t need it” Lyke responded before ordering Okelola held without bail.
Okelola is expected back in court Dec. 14.
